recording vocals in mono?

[The Bastard]

my tascam us 122 will only let me record my vocals in mono. its got two xlr mic inputs a right and left , i can only hook my mic up to one of em at a time. do i need to cop sum kinda splitter to record my vocals in stereo or is recording the vocals in mono a normal practice?

 

[KurtisRich]

Chacaron, Chacaron!

 

[Ash Holmz]

dont record vocals in stereo ... unless u RRREEEEEAAAAAAAALLLLLYYYY know what u are doing .... and u need 2 mics to do it anyways..... 99.99% of rap vocals are mono recordings

 

[Relic]

^ Good that confirms what Ive been doing. lol
I usually record them in mono then split the main vocals into stereo via plugin in protools.
I also leave any "Backup" vocals in mono.
If you REALLY wanted them in stereo on that you could have your artist drop them twice on 2 diff trax, then pan them.

 

[KurtisRich]

what about singing? do you record singing vocals in mono too?

 

[Formant024]

always mono, stereo would be like layering your own voice.

 

[KurtisRich]

coooo thanks for the info. I never knew about recording in mono

 

[open mind]

mmhhhhh... interesting never tried it.

ok i prepare an audio track panned all to the left or to the right (mono right?) then i start recording the vocals on that track. so now my question wtf u do next??? u got a vocal track only on left or right side whats the precedur now?

 

[Formant024]

naw man, you set the channel to mono, panning wont change the issue. Wat you can do is convert a stereo recording to mono ( not mix mode, but L or R channel only mode ), but pretty every mixer on a daw could a channel from stereo to mono.

 

[wrightboy]

vocals should always be recorded in mono, whether it's for rap, or anything else. that's just how it is. once you start adding reverb and delay and whatnot, you can convert it to stereo, and that's basically becuase those are stereo effects.

 

[thedreampolice]

do you use more than one mic on a vocalist? if not than that is mono.

 

[open mind]

naw man, you set the channel to mono, panning wont change the issue. Wat you can do is convert a stereo recording to mono ( not mix mode, but L or R channel only mode ), but pretty every mixer on a daw could a channel from stereo to mono.

aight i got it after recording the vocals in mono whats next? the fact that i recorded it in mono does that mean that it is panned to one side? if this is so then whats next dublicating the channel ? sorry for the noob questions but i never did that i always record in stereo what are the advantage of recording the vocals in mono and why is that recommended?

iam confused now lol

 

[Relic]

If you have recorded it in mono you should pan the thing to the center.
If you dont have a program in the hardware that will convert it to stereo then maybe you can copy the track and pan them left and right....
More likely than not you do have somthing that will flip it to stereo like Formant says.
Otherwise record one more take of the vocals and pan on a seperate track or leave it mono,...

After searching I found this review lol:

Customer Reviews SUCKS BIG TIME
by sonofabass from Ca., April 25, 2006

edit :hmm wont copy for some reason but I think the title says it all. LOL
Im gonna do some more research on it. If Im correct this is a box thats converts audio to midi.
Once you have it in your recording program thn I think that what Formant says is true you should be able to convert it to stereo by plugin or somthing there....

Also: http://www.tascam.com/Products/US-1...7EEB1D40DA=0&bcsi_scan_filename=US122_Eng.pdf

 

[thedreampolice]

"If you dont have a program in the hardware that will convert it to stereo then maybe you can copy the track and pan them left and right...."

rel Why would you do this? doing that there is no difference than a mono track. Now if you wanted a have different effects on each one or something. Am i missing something?

 

[open mind]

now iam really confused WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I RECORD MONO AND THEN TRANSFORM IT TO STEREO?? INSTEAD OF THAT BULLSHIT I CAN RECORD IN STEREO RIGHT AWAY! OR AM I MISSING SUMTIN????

 

[Relic]

^Well sir according to you you would need 2 mics to do so:

"its got two xlr mic inputs a right and left , i can only hook my mic up to one of em at a time. do i need to cop sum kinda splitter to record my vocals in stereo or is recording the vocals in mono a normal practice?"

Everyone has answered the question to the best of their ability.
I think the above answers explain that well enough.
Edit:
LOL ok yeah I see it was bastards post to start not open mind , but regardless the question has been answered as to why mono in the first place
v

 

[BROUSSARD BEATS]

lol look record in mono
keep pan center
when you bounce the session down (thats all tracks to one)
it will bounce all to stereo
so just record in mono
or get you a stereo plug
look at the plug at the end of your mic
if its has 1 black line thats mono
If it has two thats stereo
if the plug end is mono and you like it to be stereo go to radio shack and get adaptor

 

[The Bastard]

lol look record in mono

look at the plug at the end of your mic
if its has 1 black line thats mono
If it has two thats stereo
if the plug end is mono and you like it to be stereo go to radio shack and get adaptor

????? its a xlr line, not a instrument cable, i was perfectly fine wit formants response. thanks every1

 

[Formant024]

aight i got it after recording the vocals in mono whats next? the fact that i recorded it in mono does that mean that it is panned to one side?

no its centered when recorder in mono, before or after doesnt matter or would have any influence on...anything

if this is so then whats next dublicating the channel ? sorry for the noob questions but i never did that i always record in stereo what are the advantage of recording the vocals in mono and why is that recommended?

iam confused now lol

well nothing actualy, duplicating or trying to make a pseudo stereo track will only result in loss of a detail ( when recorded correctly and clean, meaning nutral eq and as hot as possible ). Might sound stupid to record the vocal as loud as possible but you need to in order to obtain the full spectrum and dynamics of your voice and quality of your mic. Once recorded you set the fader according to your mix, add eq and compression.


@Basterd;
The L/R xlr input can be used as you like, it doesnt mean it can only be used for stereo. You could tell if it was a dedicated mic channel by the option you would find on your mixer, mostly a stereo channel is put under one fader and mono has its own fader but feeding a stereo signal over two mono channels would be stereo over 2 faders, panning and eq. This is not always preferable as you might offset one of those, ideal would be to link the settings of one channel to the next so that they match. This is never an option on mixer, at least not that I can think of and thats why there are stereo channels with one fader.

There is a thing as matched pair of mics, each oem makes them but they are more aimed at recording background ambience, noise ( whatever ) stereo recording, overhead for drums etc to get a sense of being in the same environment of the recording. Dumb example but just imagine a nature documentary where a bird flies past the camera and you hear a chirp from left to right.

 

[Ash Holmz]

mono means centered... right down the middle ... no panning

all stereo means is 2 channels .... left and right where u can hear activity on both sides

mono is one ... dead center ... or only one side at a time

u record your vocal tracks in mono and pan/effect them thus giving u a "stereo image" but the source files are still mono recordings

record in mono ... simple as that

... there is no need to record a vocal in stereo and u would need two mics setup absolutely flawlessly to even do it correctly anyways... a novice would most likely get phasing issues if they tried to do it themselves .... in hip hop there is about 0 need for it ..